HILLSBOROUGH COUNTY, Fla. — The U.S. economy is slowly growing, according to the latest GDP report.
Inflation flared up over the last year and is currently sitting at 3.5%.
“The Fed has a goal to try to get inflation under 2% so we’re obviously not there yet which is why they haven’t gone ahead and made any cuts as of yet,” said retirement adviser Celine Pastore.
A few months ago, economists had predicted we’d be in a better position, but things are moving much slower than expected.
The disappointing numbers have caused the stock market to dip.
“When we think that the market is going to go up, it ends up going down. When we think The Fed is going to cut interest rates, they don’t, and so on,” said Pastore.
As things stand, what this means for consumers is that prices will remain elevated, and we won’t see the relief we’ve been hoping for anytime soon.
Food, energy, and shelter prices are all up.
Since the economy is always going to ebb and flow, experts encourage people to do certain things regardless of what’s happening economically.
“You always need to have a minimum of 3-6 months of your monthly expenses put aside. That I firmly believe in,” said Pastore.
“You’re going to want to make sure you have a really good budget. Cut back on expenses that you don’t need, those you know discretionary expenses—maybe it’s eating out more often, or going to sporting events. If you can’t afford that, now is not the time to do that,” she added.
Now, it’s just a waiting game to see how long The Fed will keep interest rates high so as not to crash the economy and make things worse.
“There are a lot of factors that are going to play into this, and we are really all hoping that by the end of this year, we will start seeing some cuts in interest rates from The Fed. But The Fed has to be very, very careful because if they cut too often or too much, they can actually crash the economy, and that’s the last thing that we want to do,” said Pastore.
